Conventionally, in order to grow carbon nanotubes, a catalytic metal thin film is formed by a sputtering method or a vapor deposition method, and thereafter, the catalytic metal thin film is heated while introducing a reduction gas or an inert gas into a chamber, to thereby make the catalytic metal thin film be fine particles (For example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-open Nos. 2004-267926 and 2002-530805). After that, a raw gas such as acetylene gas starts to be supplied into a chamber, and with the use of a thermal CVD method, a plasma CVD method, a hot filament CVD method or the like, the carbon nanotubes are grown.
However, such conventional methods include a problem that diameters of the growing nanotubes are not stabilized, so that characteristics of the carbon nanotubes tend to vary.
In terms of controlling the diameters of the carbon nanotubes, a method to grow carbon nanotubes using catalytic particles is described in Patent Document 3. However, even when applying the method described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2005-22886, although the expected object is achieved, the variation of the diameters and the characteristics of the carbon nanotubes may arise.